Sustainability Business Case (2014)
- Rose Buss, MS Environmental Policy and Planning
- Heather Croteau, MS Sustainable Systems
- Steven Davidson, MBA/MS Sustainable Systems
- Carole Kerrey, MS Environmental Policy and Planning
- Janet Van De Winkle, MS Sustainable Systems
Overview: think of this project as if you were trying to convince the CFO that sustainability drives value into the organization and his support/involvement would help to further embed sustainability in to all aspects of our business
Summary: The purpose of this project is to analyze and articulate the business case for sustainability. The main audience would be GM's corporate leadership, and in particular our CFO and our Chief Risk Officer. The resulting report/write-up should discuss why sustainability matters from a dollars and cents perspective.
The suggested goals of the project are to:
1) Develop a compelling "story" or "pitch" substantiated by data that shows sustainability drives value into the business
2) Relate stock price to sustainability through risk reduction (affects risk adjusted valuations), top-line growth, and bottom-line improvements/reduced structural costs.
3) Assess what the Social Responsible Investing community primarily measures recommend changes GM needs to make in order to be an attractive investment to the SRI community
4) Assess our various impacts on the environment and use a methodology to value those impacts.
5) Identify the benefits we receive from nature's services and use a methodology to value them.
6) Generate "mini-business cases" of sustainability in action from various functions (purchasing, logistics, manufacturing, marketing, vehicle engineering, finance, etc)
Secondarily, the report, or parts of it, would be leveraged as an employee engagement tool and widely distributed to employees around the world as an employee engagement tool to encourage all employees to approach their work with a sustainability mindset.
I would work closely with team, advising them on the work and mentoring them as requested, throughout the project. In order to develop the "mini-business cases," the project team would be expected to engage with/interview a diverse group of employees throughout GM. Any travel would likely be limited to driving to GM's Headquarters in Detroit, GM Technology Center in Warren, and possibly some nearby assembly plants. Interviews could also be conducted by phone. At the conclusion of the project, I would expect the team to present this to GM leadership and as well as presenting it to a global GM audience, probably via a webinar.
Expenses incurred as a result of this project would likely only be incidentals such as gas, printing, etc.
A report and supporting material that would convince our CFO that sustainability needs to be further embedded into GM.
This project would require a combination of business/finance skills, accounting, sustainability, and an understanding of the current work going on in the valuation of nature's services (e.g.: Dow & TNC) and/or environmental profit & loss statements (e.g.: Puma)